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A look to the future

W. Russell Alexandera, Linda E. McKinleyb, Ian G. McKinleyc

aBedrock Geosciences, Auenstein, Switzerland

bVilligen, Switzerland

cDepartment of Environmental Engineering & Architecture, Nagoya University, Japan

10.1. Introduction

Looking back at the content of this book, it is perhaps now easier to see how remarkably complex is the business of safely disposing of radioactive wastes in a geological repository. Although the principles are fairly straightforward, their application is difficult – requiring an integration of many technical and socio-political factors to develop solutions which are not only safe, but also practical and acceptable to all stakeholders.

To put this technical status report in context, a short overview will now be given on recent trends in repository implementation in national (and international) repository programmes, followed by a look at where the main priorities for future efforts might usefully be directed. Finally, some closing comments will be made on the implications of radwaste management for something which is, in global terms, a much greater problem – the safe disposal of chemotoxic waste.

10.2. Current trends in repository programmes

As emphasised previously, radwaste disposal exists in a socio-political environment which more strongly determines progress than scientific and technological constraints. Although wastes with enhanced radioactivity have been recognised since the beginning of the twentieth century, in the early days the casual treatment of such material represented the norm for all industrial waste – resulting in the legacy of chemical pollution found in most developed countries today. Much more significant quantities and more hazardous types of waste were produced following the discovery of the nuclear chain reaction and its rapid development for military and power generation purposes. Standards were largely set by the major nuclear powers, where civil and military programmes were inexorably linked. It is, however, not surprising that, with the MAD (mutually assured destruction) threat of the Cold War, the risks associated with radwaste were not taken too seriously.

As noted in Chapters 3 and 7, this situation improved considerably with the rise of environmental concerns in the 1970s and 1980s. Standards became stricter, programmes became more open and more sophisticated repository designs were developed. Although section 7.5 overviews the current status worldwide, looking in detail at some of the more advanced programmes, an attempt will be made here to identify some of the general trends involved and speculate on how these might develop in the future.

The first major trend is the marked change in assumptions about future waste arisings as a result of growing concern about global warming and a consequent renaissance in interest in nuclear power. Past commitments from countries like Sweden and Germany to a nuclear phase-out are looking increasingly impractical and, indeed, the highly publicised closure of two smaller units under such a scheme in Sweden has masked the parallel ongoing uprating of the remaining plants. Other countries with nuclear power which were also discussing phase-out a decade ago are now increasingly planning to extend the life of older plants or to replace them with new reactors – possibly of advanced or novel design (see, e.g., Kemm, 1999).

Indeed, extremely ambitious plans for nuclear development are being encouraged for the rapidly expanding economies of China and India to minimise the impact they would otherwise have on greenhouse gas emissions. When taken together with the increasing interest in countries without nuclear power to move in this direction, the future economics of reprocessing and fast breeder reactors begins to look much more favourable – thus not only the quantities but also the types of waste involved may evolve significantly during this century. Indeed, even the USA, which has long opposed reprocessing due to the risk of weapons proliferation, has recently done a U-turn to propose offering an international reprocessing service – although still basing its arguments on national security.

A second trend has been a move towards more active involvement of the general public in establishing waste management programmes. The HLW repository projects with most local acceptance – in Finland and Sweden – have coupled the technical aspects of site selection with intensive dialogue with local communities. The extreme version of this approach is to rely completely on volunteering, which has been a success recently for LLW in the ROK and is the chosen method for HLW in Japan. The successes here also indicate that compensation – both direct and indirect – plays a role in building acceptance. This is emphasised as not to be a payment to balance risks, rather an acknowledgement of the stigma associated with radwaste and the inherent unfairness of asking a local community to bear the burden of a national power programme. Such a tendency to provide financial compensation to host communities is, indeed, increasingly seen in other major industrial projects – both nuclear and non-nuclear.

Closely associated with the discussion of the rights of host communities is increasing discussion of regional or international alternatives to individual national repository projects. Although such international options are clearly advantageous for small nuclear programmes and have long been explicitly considered by some countries (e.g., in Switzerland and the Netherlands), there has been strong resistance to the idea by some of the major programmes (e.g., the UK). Although the justification of such a position was often claimed to be the ethical unacceptability of exporting waste, the tacit concern was probably a worry that more opposition could arise in local communities within their own countries if they thought that importing waste was possible. The ethical arguments can, indeed, be easily countered in that the most vocal opponents of international repositories do not ever consider directly handling the mining waste which may be the most